Each day this week we are pleased to share with you an excerpt from Alistair Begg’s “5 Bible Verses on the Second Coming of Christ”.

Luke 11:2 “Your kingdom come.”

“There is both a now and a not yet dimension to the kingdom. So, for example, Jesus spoke about conferring a kingdom on His disciples. And we anticipate a day when Jesus will say to the whole of His people—Matthew 25:34—‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.’ So, as much as we look for God’s kingly rule in the life of an individual who is presently in the dominion of darkness and is transferred into the kingdom of the Son he loves, and as much as we need to live in submission to His kingly rule in terms of the advancement of His reign within all the facets of our lives, so we look forward to a day when God will finally bring to completion this great master plan. …

“The King is coming, and the full disclosure of His reign, the ultimate establishment of His kingdom, awaits His coming. And when He comes, the visible establishment of God’s reign over all of the hosts and powers of evil will be seen. And for all the things that I don’t know and understand about the coming of the King, I do know and understand this: that the return of Jesus will be personal, and physical, and visible, and sudden, and glorious, and will usher His people into His everlasting kingdom. And it is the awareness of that then which brings transformation into this now. So it is only as we’re able to live with a genuine expectation of that consummation that we will then be prepared to live in such an expression of submission and we will continue to thank God for the wonder of our conversion.”

Commentary from the sermon “‘Your Kingdom Come’” by Alistair Begg:

Each day this week we will be sharing with you an excerpt from Alistair Begg’s “5 Bible Verses on the Second Coming of Christ”.

Mark 13:33“Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come.”

“In Jesus the kingdom has come; in the preaching of the Gospel, the kingdom is coming; and in the return of Jesus Christ, the kingdom will come in all of its fullness. …

“Let us be absolutely clear that we are ignorant about the time of Christ’s return. … We ought not to feel bad about that, because we’re in good company. Actually, we’re in a large company to begin with, because He says that ‘no one knows.’ …

“Our ignorance as to timing provides no excuse for being unprepared. Rather, it is our very ignorance of the timing of the event upon which the stress is actually laid by Jesus …. Ignorance, far from being an excuse, is to be an incentive.”

Commentary from the sermon “A Wake-Up Call!” by Alistair Begg:

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.

Refrain:
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.

Perfect submission, perfect delight,
Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
Angels, descending, bring from above
Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.

Perfect submission, all is at rest,
I in my Savior am happy and blest,
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.

The lyrics for this hymn are in the public domain and may be shared or reproduced without obtaining permission.

Whether we have been hostile to Jesus’ name or simply ambivalent, we can recognize God at work within our hearts when we are confronted with our sin and find ourselves admitting we can’t solve the problem on our own. We can’t become better people. We can’t clear ourselves of the guilt of the past or the present. We can’t save ourselves.

If you have been brought face-to-face with your sin and have come to believe that Jesus is your Savior, no name will be more precious to you than His.

But once we are convinced that Jesus is the answer to our greatest problems, we can accept His gift of salvation in childlike faith. Jesus was born in a manger in Bethlehem so that He could, as Matthew tells us, “save his people from their sins,” restoring them to peace with God and giving them the promise of eternal life with Him. He did this by dying on the cross and taking the punishment of sin on His own shoulders. And now, having been raised from the dead, He sits at the Father’s right hand—an eternal testimony that He has saved those who have put their faith in Him. And someday, He will come again to make all things new.

The name given to the incarnate Son of God was significant. This Christmas, take the time to understand just how precious that name is. Put your faith in Jesus, the Savior, and rest in the assurance that you can rejoice in His name forever.

This article was adapted from the sermon “The Name of Jesus” by Alistair Begg.

If you have been brought face-to-face with your sin and have come to believe that Jesus is your Savior, no name will be more precious to you than His. Though at one time you may have held Him at arm’s length, despised Him as nothing more than a profanity, or even thought that you could save yourself through good works, the name, the person, and the work of Jesus have now become dear, for you have drawn near to Him and experienced His compassion, kindness, and mercy.

For the bereaved, Jesus Christ is a comfort in times of loss. For those who have been preoccupied with themselves, lost in life, and confused about their future, Jesus opens their eyes and shows them the way. For those who have felt lost and empty because their consciences accused them of their guilt night and day, Jesus is their joy in life and the only one who can still their soul. There are myriad ways that someone may find that the name they once profaned is truly precious. These men and women can wholeheartedly agree with the hymn writer:

How sweet the name of Jesus sounds
In a believer’s ear!
It soothes our sorrows, heals our wounds,
And drives away our fear.¹

John Newton, “How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds” (1779).

This article was adapted from the sermon “The Name of Jesus” by Alistair Begg.

Many people have no interest in the name Jesus, except perhaps as a curse word. They have no interest in Jesus as a Savior, they have not experienced Jesus’ power to change their lives, and they may even question whether Jesus really is who He says He is—but they still find the sound of His name to be a convenient interjection when they are surprised or angry. So they choose to profane the name of the incarnate God, who came to save us from our sins.

Yet it is not only the obvious offenders who profane Jesus’ name. Many people feel some respect for the name of Jesus, but their lives are busy, and so Jesus is ultimately sidelined. After all, there are places to go, people to meet, money to be earned, bills to be paid, and children to be raised. Jesus is just one of many obligations, and certainly not their chief desire. People thus have little awareness that they need to be saved at all, and they ignore the testimony of Jesus’ own name: that He has come to save them.

Still others are lost in their desire to have an open mind. They want to be inclusive citizens who never offend their neighbors. But in the process, their open minds have closed their hearts to belief. The goal of complete inclusivity does not mesh well with the message that “there is no other name … by which we must be saved.” Such men and women prefer to keep Jesus at the margin as one of many wise teachers who can show the way to a better life. While they may think they honor Him, they deny the very meaning of Jesus’ name by denying the world’s need for His salvation.

It is not only the obvious offenders who profane Jesus’ name.

Surprisingly, even professing Christians can defile the name of Jesus with their pious routines that lack the substance of faith in the risen Lord. When people go about religious duties, calling themselves Christians, but their lives have not been changed and they have no intimate awareness of Jesus, they take His name in vain (Ex. 20:7). To be a Christian is not simply to perform the good works and religious ceremonies that the Bible prescribes. It is rather to be united to Christ by grace through faith. Consequently, it’s a great profanity to invoke the Savior’s name while at the same time denying its testimony by seeking to save oneself through good works.

This article was adapted from the sermon “The Name of Jesus” by Alistair Begg.

Today we begin a four part series adapted from a December 2022 sermon by Alistair Begg.

When the angel visited Mary and Joseph to announce the birth of the Messiah, he gave clear instructions concerning the child’s name: “You shall call his name Jesus” (Matt. 1:21; Luke 1:31). Christ has many glorious names: King, Creator, Lord, Judge, Son of God, Son of David, Master, I Am, the First and the Last, etc. But the angel commanded that a very specific name be given Him at His birth—and we may wonder at the intention behind that choice. Why “Jesus”?

The name itself was not an unusual name. In fact, it is the Hellenized version of the Old Testament name Joshua. In Hebrew, it is Yeshua, and simply translated, it means “The Lord saves.” So of all the glorious names He might have been given, the name that would mark out the incarnate Son of God would be that which describes Him as Savior. Jesus’ name communicates His purpose: “for he will save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21). As Peter would later proclaim, “There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

While Jesus’ name and ministry invite people into grace, many do not respond to Jesus Himself with warmth. His name is precious, yet so many treat it as peripheral, or even profane. During this Christmas season, then, we ought to ask ourselves, “What does the name Jesus mean to me?”

This article was adapted from the sermon “The Name of Jesus” by Alistair Begg.

Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. (Heb. 12:28–29)

The final essential of Hebrews 12 is to worship God acceptably and properly, “with reverence and awe.” We ought to set aside superficial and trivial controversies about worship style to experience and declare the glory of God with His people. And beyond our corporate gatherings, our very lives should be a “living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Rom. 12:1). Our God, a great and “consuming fire” (Deut. 4:24), is worthy to have our entire lives devoted to Him.

To give our whole selves to God and practice these six essentials isn’t a responsibility to be carried out grudgingly. It is our privilege and pleasure to live as God intends us to. He has written the story of His glory across time and space, and—wonder upon wonder!—all who confess Christ as Lord find themselves a part of His master plan. When we live and act in accord with what He sets forth and pursue obedience over a lifetime, He will use us to keep writing His story and to draw others into His kingdom.

Are these essentials our duty? Sure they are. But they are also our delight as we live to display Christ’s greatness.

This article was adapted from the sermon “Essentials of Christian Maturity”by Alistair Begg.

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